Party in Pink

[Democrats] would have America leave Iraq before the job is done. That's the kind of withdrawal that Osama bin Laden has been predicting. He and his followers believe that America doesn't have the stomach for this fight, and they are absolutely convinced they can break the will of the American people.

—Vice President Cheney
11.2.06 speech


It’s pretty clear TV networks chose red to represent Republican states because they wanted to avoid associating Democrats with “Reds.” Nobody will admit it, though (see here).

Democrats are the party of the left, and red was their color. Republicans began with the Civil War and Lincoln, so blue was their color. But to really nail the Democrats of today, recognize they are the pink party. And in fact, there is a women’s peace organization associated with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan that calls itself CodePink (website here).

Pink is the Democrats’ right color for these reasons:

1. Women dominate the Democratic Party—women and men sympathetic to feminism. The civil rights struggle was the great cause of the 1960s—equal rights for all. Almost seamlessly, the work that went into ending Black segregation shifted to realizing full equality for women, including “the right to choose.” Democrats led this effort and their party remains the home of activist women. The energy level of Democratic women remains so much higher—compare Hillary and Laura, or Pelosi and Libby Dole. And add the intelligent, hard-working teachers—one of every four Democratic convention delegates is a member of the National Education Association.

2. The Democrats’ agenda is a women’s agenda. All war is bad, a wasteful and costly diversion from real concerns. We go overseas only to help the desperately poor or to stop genocide. Otherwise, Americans should be supporting government and nonprofit programs helping our own—minorities, the elderly, children, the poor, the sick, and women. In the traditional family, the male was the bread earner and the female was stuck with whatever he brought home. Think of business as the traditional male. Think of government as the family’s female—once a tiny economic factor, now playing a major role balancing and compensating for business (male) failings.

3. Women drive the Democrats’ dream. To me, the Democrats’ agenda seems so tired, so old-fashioned. When business broke down during the Depression, government was there to lift us up. Now business, not government, represents the future. Unleashed, business is able to deliver jobs and prosperity to people of any status, including the most needy (if indirectly, through taxes on business growth). But to women, especially baby boomers, it is so obvious equality has yet to be achieved that there can be no question of abandoning government’s corrective role. Government must rebalance the scale. “Affirmative action” still makes sense.